Seven female workers who were poisoned at a shoe factory in south
China's Guangdong Province are receiving medical treatment.
The seven young women, aged between 18 and 25, are from southwest
China's Guizhou Province and central China's Hubei Province. They
worked at the Anjia Shoes Factory, a Taiwan-funded enterprise in
Guangdong.
They were hospitalized on June 6 in the Occupational-Disease
Prevention and Control Hospital in Guangzhou, the capital of
Guangdong Province, with the assistance of the local branch of the
All-China
Women's Federation.
Last month, a factory employee wrote to the federation branch to
say that some workers at the factory were in poor health. The
federation took immediate measures and found the seven women. They
said their limbs felt numb and weak, which the local hospital
diagnosed as toxicopathy (disease due to poisoning).
The disease allegedly resulted from a chemical used in the glues to
make the shoes. The substance was present in doses that exceeded
safety standards.
Victim Tang Wenyan was almost paralyzed. Ren Bizhen, another
sufferer, had to hold chopsticks in her palms while eating because
her fingers were numb.
A
doctor at the hospital said 90 percent of victims can be cured if
the case is not serious.
The Guangdong Province Women's Federation conducted a joint
inspection of the factory along with the local labor
department.
The factory will be fined and made to pay the workers compensation,
said the federation.
The Anjia Shoes Factory has promised to pay 1 million yuan
(US$122,000) for the medical expenses of the seven workers and a
further 200,000 yuan (US$24,400) for a publicity campaign for the
prevention of occupational diseases.
(China
Daily July 9, 2002)